


there's room for both

by mostlikelydefinentlymad



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Awesome Sam Wilson, Bisexual Sam Wilson, Bisexual Steve Rogers, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve Rogers Feels, Stucky - Freeform, steve realizes his sexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-26 22:41:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5023360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mostlikelydefinentlymad/pseuds/mostlikelydefinentlymad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the heart can't settle for just one first love, sometimes Steve needs help finding himself. Not Captain America, no. Steve Rogers who grew up in Brooklyn and fell for his best friend so hard that he knocked his head on the way down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there's room for both

_In another life_  
_I would make you stay_  
_So I don't have to say_  
_You were the one that got away_

"Sam, I picked the wrong one."

Sam blinks and switches the lamp on - the clock reads 4:45am. He knows that Steve doesn't sleep and certainly hasn't since discovering that Bucky was alive after all. He understands - the bed is too soft, the dark is too daunting, the play by play behind closed eyelids is too much. He doesn't sleep well either.

"What do you mean?" 

He swipes at his blurry eyes and does his best to remain awake and coherent. He's running on three hours of sleep as it is - old ghosts and all.

"Peggy. I chose her over Bucky...the bar."

Steve's voice is shaky on the other end and Sam knows he wouldn't have called if it wasn't important. They'd been searching for Bucky for over a year now and though Steve denied it, he fell apart with every dead end.

"Okay, why do you feel this way?," Sam channels his inner PTSD counselor so Steve can open up without feeling pressured.

"He told me...Sam. He _told_ me. Till the end, he said. He promised and the end was already there long before the...train. It was supposed to be _forever_."

Sam's chest aches and he has a knot in his stomach because hes been Steve before, he has. He'd made promises he couldn't keep -

 _I won't turn to drinking._ [truth: more than 6mths drowning himself in alcohol]

 _I'm fine_ [truth: I can't move on. he was everything]

 _We ever get out of this alive you and me are going for a drink, Riley. I'll pay._ [truth: never made it that far]

"You couldn't have known, Steve."

Sam yawns and shuffles to the darkened kitchen, pours himself a glass of water in hopes that it'll wake him up because Steve needs him right now.

"I should've though, Sam. But I thought...dammit I thought I could keep both of them."

"We've all made choices we're not exactly comfortable with. It wasn't the right time."

Steve sighs heavily on the other end of the line and there is faint sniffling.

"I don't deserve him. I...he was my best friend and that night at the bar..."

Sam only knows vague details about that night, nothing more than Steve feels comfortable sharing. He wants to say that he understands - that he never got the chance to make it real with Riley, the words get caught in his throat. 

"It was hard back then. Loving another man was...difficult and dangerous. You loved them both and that's okay."

Steve considers this - "No one ever told me it was okay to love them both." 

"We love who we love. We don't choose. The heart chooses _for_ us and it had enough room to fit Bucky _and_ Peggy in it," Sam soothes. _  
_

He hears the sound of sniffling once more and the snap of a compass. Sam has saw it enough to recognize it by sound.

"He wouldn't have though. He wouldn't have dropped me for anyone."

Guilt laces every heavy word Steve utters, emotional baggage - a carry on of regret and _what if._

"Neither did you."

"She was the first woman I'd ever loved and he was...the one I imagined I'd spend the rest of my life with. Hows that for messed up?."

Sam doesn't have to be there to know that Steve is gritting his teeth and his palm is cradling the phone hard enough to break.

"It's a different kind of love, man. We don't love two people in the same way. We adjust, we make room."

"I really thought we could make it work," Steve says.

Sam reads between the lines - _I wanted him in my life even if only as a best friend. I'm terrified that we'll never find him. I was foolish back then and thought I could love them both equally. Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers are a package deal._

"You have a second chance. How many people could say that after years of being apart you'd love him no less? Not many. I'm sure that deep down he'll let us find him when hes ready."

Sam pulls out a kitchen chair and sits - takes small sips of his water as he listens because sometimes that's what Steve needs the most.

"What if he doesn't...love me?"

"He will," Sam says and hopes that hes right. He _has_ to love Steve to have pulled him from the brinks of death and walked away because he only wanted Steve to be safe - he felt like he _wasn't._

"They never got along, you know. Nearly came to blows in the bar and if she'd been a man I think Bucky would've clocked her."

Sam traces the condensation along the side of the glass and patiently listens.

"They were too much alike, figures I'd pick someone just like him," Steve laughs - it comes out hollow and pained.

Sam wants to offer him reassuring words, to tell him they _will_ find him and everything will be okay but those are promises he cannot keep.

"I think I'll always... _care_ for both of them."

Sam understands - _He was my first love and she was too._

"And that's okay. We can close our eyes and pretend we don't love the other person or we can accept it - accept the fact that their ghost will never go away and make peace with it."

_I'm doing my best to take my own advice. I loved him, god I loved him with wild abandon._

"Thanks Sam."

"Anytime. Hey have you ever heard of the term _bisexual_?"

Steve is silent - hes turning the word over in his head and coming up blank.

"No."

"Bisexual means you love more than one gender and it's something that you can't _choose_." 

Steve is familiar with homosexuality given that the particular area where he grew up was bustling with same sex couples but this term was new to him.

"Are other people like... _this_?"

Sam grins - "You're talking to one."

Steve squawks on the other end as if hes discovered every secret that the universe has hidden, every closed door now opened.

"So Riley...?"

Sam swallows past the knot in his throat - "Yes."

Steve does not offer an _I'm sorry_ or anything of the sort and Sam is grateful.

"You should pay Peggy a visit, I'm sure she'd love it. Maybe even mention Bucky?"

"I should, yeah."

From everything that Sam has heard or read about Peggy Carter, she was an incredible person who seemed to _get_ Steve. She wouldn't judge - hell she probably already knows. If she can remember, that is.

"Think I'll turn in for the night," Steve mumbles - voice faint and exhausted.

"If you need me..." Sam offers.

"Thanks Sam."

Sam hears - _Thanks for setting me free Sam and accepting me as I am. I love him, I love her, the world doesn't end because of it._

"Anytime. Night, man."

"Goodnight."

 

Tomorrow they would start fresh and Steve would stop burying his feelings for Bucky. It wouldn't happen overnight but it was a starting point.

This is who he is - who he has always been. He's going to be okay. 


End file.
